Emergency Services Network

(asked on 22nd February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to ensure that Extended Area Service sites are ready for commercial use by mobile networks (a) as quickly as possible and (b) ahead the move from the airwave network to the Emergency Services Network in 2025.


Answered by
Kit Malthouse Portrait
Kit Malthouse
This question was answered on 25th February 2021

We are striving to deliver the EAS component of ESN for emergency services’ use, as quickly as possible. 4G commercial mobile phone coverage will generally be available to EE customers as soon as these masts are activated for ESN. As part of the DCMS Shared Rural Network Programme, these masts will also be made available for commercial mobile customers of other Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) wherever possible.

The EAS sites have been designed and built primarily to support the delivery of the Emergency Services Network (ESN). The Home Office, working together with DCMS as part of the Shared Rural Network (SRN) programme are upgrading as many of the EAS sites as possible to enable all operators provide 4G commercial coverage from those sites.

EE would be able to provide 4G commercial coverage (alongside ESN) from those sites at the point those sites are fully activated.

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